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The BOMB

Welcome to the BOMB.

The BlogOf the"Mother"of Bandit.

Bandit is my Hairless Chinese Crested--he's the "normal" one. I, on the other hand, am unrepentantly "pet-crazy." You know the type--the spinster who lives in the haunted house three blocks over with 72 cats...okay, so I don't have 72 cats, and my house isn't haunted--but my dogs wardrobe is better than mine! Need I say more? :~)

I've never been consistant at journaling, so the timing of my blogs will be sporadic at best. I just hope they are as entertaining to you as they are to me; however, be forewarned: Most of my blogs will be about The BaldOne. In spite of his Don King "do," I think he's just as cute as any of the Brothers B!

Now, if I can just remember not to get him wet--or feed him after midnight...

About Me

My bags are packed and I'm always ready to seek out an adventure with Bandit and Moggy in tow. Bandit is my thirteen year old Chinese Crested, who I frequently call The Bald One or The BaldOne Boy (like he was one of the Baldwin Brothers). Moggy’s full name is Pip-Moggy. He’s my two year old gansta-resuce kitty. I couldn’t decide between Pip (which are the spots on die and domino tiles) and Moggy (or Moggie when I mistakenly thought he was a she), so I combined the two. Moggy refers to the British term for "cat of unknown parentage .”
So in essence, I have an almost bald dog, and I’ve named my cat “Spot.”

Fun Stuff (I'm doing now or have done)

Artistic Attempts weekly (alternating between Painting With A Twist, That Art Place, and Peniot's Palette).

Bunko with the Belton Bunko Babes monthly.

Participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge.

Spades and Liverpool Rummy with the Spadetts weekly.

The Mighty Texas Dog Walk, Austin (fund raiser for Service Dogs, Inc--they train shelter dogs to be Service Dogs, then give them free of charge to people with disabilities.)

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

G is for Goal (A to Z Blogging Challenge 2015)

Duh! As soon as I wrote the last paragraph of yesterday’s blog—the one where I confessed I hadn't a clue
what I'd write about for G today and I promised I'd try to be a little less
scattered—it hit me—G is for Goals.
People with goals are focused. They strive to accomplish an end point, to
achieve something.

Without a vision or a goal we flounder. We are directionless. We are
often times ineffective. When we have a goal to work toward, we can accomplish
things that may initially seem to be impossible. Having goals can empower us,
as we set and achieve goals. But the goal has to be a good one.By good, I don’t mean to imply it must be
moral or upright (although I would hope it is). So, what is a good goal?

A good goal is a SMART goal.SMART
is the acronym that stands for Specific
(the what, how, and why) Measurable,
Attainable, Results-focused,and Time-bound. I'm going to lose weight. Is
a great idea—but as a goal it’s rather weak because it’s not specific or measurable. I’m going to wear a size 2 by my High
School Reunion Dinner, on July 18th appears on the surface to be
a good goal—it’s measurable, results-focused, and time-bound. However, since I’m
nowhere near being a size 2, it’s not realistic or achievable. To give myself that
goal is to set myself up for failure. A stronger goal would be, I'm going to lose ten pounds by my High School Reunion Dinner July 18th.
This goal can be easily measured, losing
ten pounds in three months is attainable, it is result-focused, and it is
time-bound; however, is not as specific as it could be.Turning it into a SMART goal it might look something
like this:

By following a 2000kcal diet and exercising 30-minuets 3 times weekly, I will
lose ten pounds, and drop a clothing size by my High School Reunion Dinner on July 18th.

One of the reasons I am taking the A to Z Blogging Challenge is because,
I’m visionless and floundering. I love to write, but I have no focus, so I
write drivel. I like to say it’s because I have eclectic reading tastes and just
don’t know what I want to write. But the truth is I have no goal, no direction.
I’ve haven’t found my voice. In order to find my voice I have to write and see
where it takes me—to see what it has to say—and I just haven’t been writing. I
have a stalled novel, a stalled blog, and one unpublished children’s story I
wrote as a gift for a young friend.

I started the novel four years ago.It started out as a cozy, morphed into a suspense, and is now stalled as
a suspenseful cozy-with a dash of romance—really—when I’m honest with myself, I
realize it’s just 35,000 words of drivel.

I set up my blog in September
2009; however, I have only 79 posts. Five and a half years is 68 months. I averaged
just over one drively post a month—and most
have been posted during the first year or the last three months—the in-between-years
are barren. My writing can’t improve and
I can’t find my voice if I don’t exercise it.

I don’t “do” resolutions, but this year I decided to make a goal
(albeit a weak goal) of writing 1-2 blog posts each week—and then I stumbled
blindly into the A to Z Blogging Challenge on March 31st. Blithely
I said, Go for it! How hard can it be?! You’ve participated in NaNoWriMo (I
overlooked the fact that I have never won).
It’ll be fun. You’ll meet some fellow bloggers. You don’t have to write a 1,000
word post each day—it can be a 100 word flash fiction, or a 200-300 word
personal essay, a 12-stanza poem, or in a pinch a really bad 5-7-5 meter pseudo-haiku.
So I signed up. And it has been fun, and I’ve read some amazing blogs. I’ve also seen some blogs
that make me realize I’m not the only one searching for voice or consistency in
their writing, and I’ve decided to revise my weak writing goal and turn it into
a SMART writing goal:

During the month of April, I will participate in the A to Z Blogging Challenge 2015 by writing
26 posts—one post each day Monday through Saturday—and reading at least five
posts each day, in order to gain insight into how an interesting story is told
and what my voice sounds like.

I think I’ve coved it all: Specific (what, how, why), Measurable,
Attainable, Results-focused,and
Time-bound. The problematic attribute is the attainable—I can write 26 posts
and read 130, but I’m not sure if I will “find my voice, or discern what
telling a good story entails” in only 26 attempts—but it’s a start, and I will definitely
be 26 attempts closer than I am now.